


In Re: Lids on Things

by coffeesuperhero



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-11
Updated: 2011-09-11
Packaged: 2017-10-23 16:38:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/252500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeesuperhero/pseuds/coffeesuperhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><b>Disclaimers</b>:  This isn't for profit, just for fun. All characters & situations belong to Marvel Entertainment, 20th Century FOX, and various subsidiaries.<br/><b>A/N</b>: AU from the end of the film. A mostly ridiculous ~2400 words of Erik's adventures in cooking for a house of mutants. Thanks to <a href="http://pocky-slash.livejournal.com/profile">pocky_slash</a>, <a href="http://amaliak.livejournal.com/profile">amaliak</a>, and <a href="http://leiascully.livejournal.com/profile">leiascully,</a> for looking this over (and special thanks to leiascully for inadvertently supplying the title). ALSO THE AMAZING AND TALENTED amaliak has <a href="http://lexieken.deviantart.com/art/Talking-to-the-kids-258018335">illustrated a scene from this story</a>. It is perfect and she is brilliant. ♥</p>
    </blockquote>





	In Re: Lids on Things

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimers** : This isn't for profit, just for fun. All characters & situations belong to Marvel Entertainment, 20th Century FOX, and various subsidiaries.  
>  **A/N** : AU from the end of the film. A mostly ridiculous ~2400 words of Erik's adventures in cooking for a house of mutants. Thanks to [pocky_slash](http://pocky-slash.livejournal.com/profile), [amaliak](http://amaliak.livejournal.com/profile), and [leiascully,](http://leiascully.livejournal.com/profile) for looking this over (and special thanks to leiascully for inadvertently supplying the title). ALSO THE AMAZING AND TALENTED amaliak has [illustrated a scene from this story](http://lexieken.deviantart.com/art/Talking-to-the-kids-258018335). It is perfect and she is brilliant. ♥

It irritates Erik that of all the people living in the mansion, the duty of providing breakfast for a household of hungry adolescent mutants so consistently falls to the one person who is distinctly _not_ in the correct frame of mind in the early morning hours to be wielding kitchen knives without committing random acts of violence, yet here he stands, onions and potatoes spread out on a cutting board, a pair of knives dicing away at them while he directs the metal whisk to whip a bowl of eggs into a frothy scramble. He sips his coffee, slowing the knives with the crook of his little finger. Not for the first time, he wishes the cutting board had some measure of metal in it, but after a few weeks of this it's the work of a moment to float the cast-iron skillet over to the counter and mentally order one of the knives to neatly shepherd the food into the waiting pan.

He had informed Charles, back when kitchen duty first became his sole responsibility, that he absolutely refused to do any manual labor. It would be mutant cooking or tinned biscuits for all. Charles had no problem with that stipulation, of course, and had clapped Erik on the back and mumbled something about how good of him it was to pitch in and do the cooking, there's a good chap.

"Wait just a minute," Erik had said, tugging Charles back into the kitchen by the metal of his belt buckle. "Surely you don't mean that this is all up to me?"

"I do have a school to run, Erik," Charles had said, that charmingly supercilious smile on his face, the one that Erik can never quite decide how he'd like to remove-- with a kiss or a fist.

"At least put the juice in something made of metal before you go, then," Erik had snapped, waving Charles out of his new domain.

It's certainly not lost on him that this little ability of his is the primary reason he's been relegated to kitchen duty, time after irritating time. There's also the fact that neither Moira nor Charles can do much in the kitchen except pour milk on cereal. He's almost embarrassed for them, they're so terrible at it. On her third day at the mansion, Moira attempted to make grilled cheese sandwiches for the little ones. The resultant plate of brown glue holding together pieces of singed bread had been completely inedible, yet had actually been a slight improvement on Charles' horribly botched tray of cinnamon toast of the morning before.

"How did you do this to _toast_?" Erik had demanded. He had poked at one of the strange blackened lumps on the baking tray, watching as it disintegrated under his finger, tiny puffs of charred bread drifting down onto the tray.

Charles hadn't even had the grace to look moderately ashamed. "I did warn you, Erik," he had said. "I don't cook."

"Charles? Cook?" Raven had laughed, coming into the kitchen, nose wrinkled at the acrid smell of burnt cinnamon. "What, you didn't tell him about the time you tried to make me hot cocoa?"

"I maintain that it would have been just fine, if you hadn't startled me," Charles had insisted.

Raven had grinned, then, and patted her brother on the shoulder. "Making a mess of whatever he's trying to cook is basically Charles' secondary mutation."

After the other adults had demonstrated their culinary ineptitude, Erik had grudgingly embraced his new duties, exchanging his early morning jogging sessions around the grounds with Charles for the simple ritual of a quiet cup of tea and a freshly baked scone in the blessed silence that reigns in the kitchen before the children wake.

Life carries ever-so-not-smoothly on at the mansion. Erik and Moira grow accustomed to sharing pointed looks over their coffeecups during strategy sessions while Charles waxes grandiose about his plans for the school. They wait until he's finished to rein him in, a kindness Erik wouldn't have extended to anyone just a few short months ago. Moira works with Hank, learning the intricacies and inner workings of the new plane he designed, and Charles sets up a class schedule and tools around the world with Raven, collecting mutants and bringing them home. In between training the new recruits-- "Students, Erik, please, we're not training an army," Charles constantly chides him-- and planning sessions with Charles and Moira, Erik continues ensuring that they'll all eat for another day.

"I suppose it's too much to hope that we'll find someone who can conjure whole meals with a single thought," Erik complains to Moira, his unexpected ally in the fight to keep Charles' head out of the clouds.

"Probably, but it's just as well," Moira says, smiling at him as she bogarts the last of the empanadas. "We'd miss your cooking."

As the school pulls more and more of their time away from each other, Charles gets the bright idea to leave Erik and Moira memoranda on various topics, which is irritating, but better than the alternative, the alternative being Charles mentally interrupting all of them without regard for what they might be doing, like hand-to-hand training with the children or the delicate process of making phyllo dough. Still, as Charles usually deigns to tell them things they already know, the missives often seem like something of an insult rather than a helping hand from their fearless leader.

"I got another one today," Moira groans one rainy afternoon, shuffling into the kitchen and pouring herself a bucket of coffee.

"Let me guess," Erik says, levitating a metal bowl filled with sugar cubes over to her. "'In Re: Fighting Mutants.' Moira: while I do appreciate your attempts to train the children, as of course there may come a day when we encounter someone with the ability to nullify their powers, please do remind them that engaging in fisticuffs is a most inappropriate way to solve their problems. Words, Moira, tell them to use their words.' "

"Almost verbatim," Moira laughs. "Nice impersonation, by the way. You should do that for the kids, they'd get a kick out of it."

It's odd to think of Moira-- Moira the human, Moira the ex-government agent-- as a friend, but in spite of himself Erik has found that Moira makes a good companion, if only as someone with whom he can commiserate over Charles' less endearing traits. She's capable, smart, and has a wicked sense of humor, enough to give as good as she gets from anyone in the mansion. And, too, Erik has slowly begun to see the value of a human ally, someone who can speak to the humans on their own terms. After all, if it were up to Charles, he'd probably send them a memo, something with a ridiculous title, such as "In Re: International Mutant Acceptance Day," or "In Re: The Fantastic Ability of the Human Genome to Produce Mutations that May Eventually Become the Dominant Form of Life on This Planet, But Don't Be Afraid of the Mutants, We Come in Peace."

He'd love to say that the latter would be too long a title, even for Charles, but precedent-- and a little memorandum entitled, "In Re: That Thing That We Did Yesterday That I Really Enjoyed And Hope That We Can Find Time To Do Again Because It was Incredible And About Which I Am Fairly Certain You Feel The Same Way Given How Vocal You Were And Also You Started Speaking In German"-- says otherwise.

There's yet another little note waiting for him on the refrigerator when he arrives in the kitchen to make his morning tea. "From the desk of Professor Charles Xavier," proclaims the type at the top, but even without this confirmation, Erik would have recognized Charles' pompous script.

>   
> **In re: Lids on Things**
> 
> Erik, surely you must know by now how much we all appreciate your culinary efforts. However, I have noticed that since you have undertaken the Herculean task of feeding all of us, the metal lids on the jars in the refrigerator have become damn near impossible for most of us to open. While you were out yesterday evening, I had to take to the jar of pickles with flatware and still couldn't manage to open it, though fortunately through my diligence I was able to loosen it enough that Raven unscrewed it easily. (That reminds me: could you perhaps reshape the forks I used into their usual condition? I left them on the counter by the sink.)
> 
> At any rate, I don't look forward to the day when you're off on a mission and one of us decides we've a craving for toast and jam. (I wouldn't mention it, but I have previously experienced difficulty opening the strawberry jam.) Would it trouble you to leave the lids a bit loose from now on?
> 
> I thank you in advance for your kind assistance in this matter.
> 
> Yours, &c., &c., sincerely, and so forth,
> 
> Charles Xavier  
> 

For some reason, Charles is unable to gain access to any jars in the refrigerator, cupboards, or pantry for a few days after that, while everything always opens easily for Moira and Raven.

It doesn't take long before Charles begins referring to Erik's time in the kitchen as more training, which makes Erik grumble, but though he's never admitted it aloud, Charles has a point. Moving a submarine or a satellite dish takes considerable effort, but while those large tasks demand brute force, they don't require the precision or the attention to small detail that making twelve omelettes au fromage with only his powers does, especially while several small screaming mutants run around underfoot.

For all their rambunctious, frenetic energy, the children, especially the smallest ones, do enjoy watching him cook. Ororo in particular is fascinated by the many ways he can use kitchen implements with nothing but the power of his mind. Lately she has been creeping out of bed early in the morning to tiptoe downstairs and help him make breakfast, and while he's always thought of himself as something of a lone wolf, her persistent, innocent cheerfulness is infectious and altogether too difficult to decline. It would take someone with a harder heart than his to turn her away, so he lets her stay, setting her up on the counter with a bowl and a piece of cheesecloth. He shows her how to wrap a clump of potatoes in the cloth and drain the water away, and she beams up at him and reaches for the bowl.

It reminds him of his childhood and the way he used to do this for his mother when he was as small and innocent as Ororo, before men following orders took that away. For once, though, his memories of his family aren't tinted with rage and a desire for vengeance. Those have been replaced by a profound sadness, a soupçon of guilt, and underneath all of that, half-remembered contentment. It is, he supposes, progress, not that he'd ever intended to make any. That has been entirely the fault of Charles Xavier, man of everlasting optimism and maddening self-righteousness, the perfect combination of qualities for this crusader for a better world.

When Charles comes down for tea later and observes the two of them, Erik doling out ingredients, the metal measuring spoons full of flour and milk floating in the air, and Ororo happily using her tiny hands to squeeze water out of shredded potatoes, giggling in utter delight when Erik makes a spoon and a fork dance a minuet across the counter, Charles only smiles knowingly at Erik, as though he knew that the perfect recipe for a fresh start included the care and raising of baby mutants. In return Erik thinks rather loudly that he regrets leaving his helmet upstairs, which makes Charles chuckle so much he nearly spits out his tea.

And so it goes.

The next morning he makes crème brûlée French toast, and Erik feels compelled to apologize to Ororo and Scott and Jean for snapping at them when their tiny hands gravitate toward the pot of superheated sugar. He had always thought, if he had to care for children, he would be the kind of guardian who warned them initially but then let them touch the hot stove if they persisted in their ignorance, letting the pain teach them the error of their ways, the same way the pain taught him. Yet he finds when it comes to it that he can do nothing but instinctively push the three pairs of questing hands away from danger, barking out a "Nein," so harshly that the three of them huddle together.

"Forgive me," he says, squatting down so he is at eye level with the children, and he knows he's gone completely over to Charles' marshmallow dream view of the world when one quivering lip from Jean has him pulling the three of them close, patting them gently on their precious heads, promising not to yell at them again. "You must listen to me," he says softly, taking their small hands in his. "Today it's just a hot stove, but some day it may be much, much more important than that." He is suddenly reminded of Miami and of Charles diving into the water after him, insisting that he let go and _listen_. "Do you understand?" he asks the children, hoping that they will learn faster than he did. He is, after all, still learning. This school of Charles' isn't just for children.

They nod, and he squeezes their tiny hands gently before letting go. He's left the sugar too long and it's useless, but he hardly cares. They've all learned something, and perhaps that's more important than perfection.

He can practically hear Charles smiling, all the way down here in the kitchen. "Helmet," he murmurs, and resumes cooking breakfast with the children chattering on beside him, an unexpected but entirely welcome peace settling over him.


End file.
